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"Time to Stand Up"

By Richard Dawkins

Written for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (http://www.ffrf.org/), Madison, Wisconsin,
September 2001.

"To blame Islam for what happened in New York is like blaming Christianity
for the troubles in Northern Ireland!" Yes. Precisely. It is time to stop
pussyfooting around. Time to get angry. And not only with Islam.

Those of us who have renounced one or another of the three "great"
monotheistic religions have, until now, moderated our language for reasons of
politeness. Christians, Jews and Muslims are sincere in their beliefs and in
what they find holy. We have respected that, even as we have disagreed with it.
The late Douglas Adams put it with his customary good humor, in an impromptu speech in
1998 (slightly abridged):

Now, the invention of the scientific method is, I'm sure we'll all
agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for
thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around
us that there is, and it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be
attacked. If it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and
if it doesn't withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn't seem to
work like that. It has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred
or holy or whatever. What it means is, "Here is an idea or a notion that
you're not allowed to say anything bad about; you're just not. Why
not?--because you're not!" If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree
with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have
an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should
go up or down you are free to have an argument about it. But on the other hand
if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday,' you say, "I
respect that."

The odd thing is, even as I am saying that, I am thinking "Is there an
Orthodox Jew here who is going to be offended by the fact that I just said
that?" But I wouldn't have thought "Maybe there's somebody from the left wing
or somebody from the right wing or somebody who subscribes to this view or the
other in economics" when I was making the other points. I just think "Fine, we
have different opinions." But, the moment I say something that has something
to do with somebody's (I'm going to stick my neck out here and say irrational)
beliefs, then we all become terribly protective and terribly defensive and say
"No, we don't attack that; that's an irrational belief but no, we respect it."

Why should it be that it's perfectly legitimate to support the Labor party
or the Conservative party, Republicans or Democrats, this model of economics
versus that, Macintosh instead of Windows--but to have an opinion about how
the Universe began, about who created the Universe . . . no, that's holy? What
does that mean? Why do we ring-fence that for any other reason other than that
we've just got used to doing so? There's no other reason at all, it's just one
of those things that crept into being and once that loop gets going it's very,
very powerful. So, we are used to not challenging religious ideas but it's
very interesting how much of a furor Richard creates when he does it!
Everybody gets absolutely frantic about it because you're not allowed to say
these things. Yet when you look at it rationally there is no reason why those
ideas shouldn't be as open to debate as any other, except that we have agreed
somehow between us that they shouldn't be.

Douglas is dead, but I think he would join me in asking people now to stand
up and break this absurd taboo. My respect for the Abrahamic religions went up
in the smoke and choking dust of September 11th. The last vestige of respect for
the taboo disappeared as I watched the "Day of Prayer" in Washington Cathedral,
where people of mutually incompatible faiths united in homage to the very force
that caused the problem in the first place: religion. It is time for people of
intellect, as opposed to people of faith, to stand up and say "Enough!" Let our
tribute to the dead be a new resolve: to respect people for what they
individually think, rather than respect groups for what they were
collectively brought up to believe.

Notwithstanding bitter sectarian hatreds over the centuries (all too
obviously still going strong), Judaism, Islam and Christianity have much in
common. Despite New Testament watering down and other reformist tendencies, all
three pay historic allegiance to the same violent and vindictive God of Battles,
memorably summed up by Gore Vidal in 1998:

The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is
monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three
anti-human religions have evolved--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These are
sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal--God is the Omnipotent
Father--hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries
afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a
jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as
he is not just in place for one tribe, but for all creation. Those who would
reject him must be converted or killed for their own good.

In The
Guardian of 15th September, I named belief in an afterlife as the key weapon
that made the New York atrocity possible. Of prior significance is religion's
deep responsibility for the underlying hatreds that motivated people to use that
weapon in the first place. To breathe such a suggestion, even with the most
gentlemanly restraint, is to invite an onslaught of patronizing abuse, as
Douglas Adams noted. But the insane cruelty of the suicide attacks, and the
equally vicious though numerically less catastrophic 'revenge' attacks on
hapless Muslims living in America and Britain, push me beyond ordinary caution.

How can I say that religion is to blame? Do I really imagine that, when a
terrorist kills, he is motivated by a theological disagreement with his victim?
Do I really think the Northern Ireland pub bomber says to himself "Take that,
Tridentine Transubstantiationist bastards!" Of course I don't think anything of
the kind. Theology is the last thing on the minds of such people. They are not
killing because of religion itself, but because of political grievances, often
justified. They are killing because the other lot killed their fathers. Or
because the other lot drove their great grandfathers off their land. Or because
the other lot oppressed our lot economically for centuries.

My point is not that religion itself is the motivation for wars, murders and
terrorist attacks, but that religion is the principal label, and the most
dangerous one, by which a "they" as opposed to a "we" can be identified at all.
I am not even claiming that religion is the only label by which we identify the
victims of our prejudice. There's also skin color, language, and social class.
But often, as in Northern Ireland, these don't apply and religion is the only
divisive label around. Even when it is not alone, religion is nearly always an
incendiary ingredient in the mix as well.

It is not an exaggeration to say that religion is the most inflammatory
enemy-labelling device in history. Who killed your father? Not the individuals
you are about to kill in 'revenge.' The culprits themselves have vanished over
the border. The people who stole your great grandfather's land have died of old
age. You aim your vendetta at those who belong to the same religion as
the original perpetrators. It wasn't Seamus who killed your brother, but it was
Catholics, so Seamus deserves to die "in return." Next, it was Protestants who
killed Seamus so let's go out and kill some Protestants "in revenge." It was
Muslims who destroyed the World Trade Center so let's set upon the turbaned
driver of a London taxi and leave him paralyzed from the neck down.

The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the
real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic
region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a
fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had
given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this
really was the 'historic homeland' of the Jews (though the horrific stories of
how Joshua and others conquered their Lebensraum might have made them
wonder). Even if it wasn't justifiable at the time, no doubt a good case can be
made that, since Israel exists now, to try to reverse the status quo
would be a worse wrong.

I do not intend to get into that argument. But if it had not been for
religion, the very concept of a Jewish state would have had no meaning in the
first place. Nor would the very concept of Islamic lands, as something to
be invaded and desecrated. In a world without religion, there would have been no
Crusades; no Inquisition; no anti-Semitic pogroms (the people of the diaspora
would long ago have intermarried and become indistinguishable from their host
populations); no Northern Ireland Troubles (no label by which to distinguish the
two 'communities,' and no sectarian schools to teach the children historic
hatreds--they would simply be one community).

It is a spade we have here, let's call it a spade. The Emperor has no
clothes. It is time to stop the mealy-mouthed euphemisms: 'Nationalists,'
'Loyalists,' 'Communities,' 'Ethnic Groups.' Religions is the word you
need. Religion is the word you are struggling hypocritically to avoid.

Parenthetically, religion is unusual among divisive labels in being
spectacularly unnecessary. If religious beliefs had any evidence going
for them, we might have to respect them in spite of their concomitant
unpleasantness. But there is no such evidence. To label people as
death-deserving enemies because of disagreements about real world politics is
bad enough. To do the same for disagreements about a delusional world inhabited
by archangels, demons and imaginary friends is ludicrously tragic.

The resilience of this form of hereditary delusion is as astonishing as its
lack of realism. It seems that control of the plane which crashed near
Pittsburgh was probably wrestled out of the hands of the terrorists by a group
of brave passengers. The wife of one of these valiant and heroic men, after she
took the telephone call in which he announced their intention, said that God had
placed her husband on the plane as His instrument to prevent the plane crashing
on the White House. I have the greatest sympathy for this poor woman in her
tragic loss, but just think about it! As my (also understandably
overwrought) American correspondent who sent me this piece of news said:

"Couldn't God have just given the hijackers a heart attack or
something instead of killing all those nice people on the plane? I guess he
didn't care about the Trade Center, didn't bother to come up with a plan for
them."

Is there no catastrophe terrible enough to shake the faith of people, on both
sides, in God's goodness and power? No glimmering realization that he might not
be there at all: that we just might be on our own, needing to cope with the real
world like grown-ups?

But how do we understand something like this? Why does God allow
evil like this to take place? Perhaps that is what you are asking now. You may
even be angry at God. I want to assure you that God understands those feelings
that you may have.

Well, that's big of God, I must say. I'm sure that makes the bereaved feel a
whole lot better (the pathetic thing is, it probably does!). Mr. Graham went on:

I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows
tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer
totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is
sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of
suffering. The Bible says God is not the author of evil. It speaks of evil as
a "mystery."

Less baffled by this deep theological mystery were two of America's
best-known televangelists, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. In a conversation on
Robertson's lucrative television show (religion is tax-exempt), they knew
exactly where to put the blame. The whole thing was obviously caused by
America's sin. Falwell said that God had protected America wonderfully
for 225 years, but now, what with abortion and gays and lesbians and the ACLU,
"all of them who have tried to secularize America . . . I point the finger in
their face and say you helped this happen." "Well, I totally concur," responded
Robertson. Bush, to his credit, swiftly disowned this characteristic example of
the religious mind at work.

The United States is the most religiose country in the Western world, and its
born-again Christian leader is eyeball to eyeball with the most religiose people
on Earth. Both sides believe that the Bronze Age God of Battles is on their
side. Both take risks with the world's future in unshakeable, fundamentalist
faith that He will grant them the victory. Incidentally, people speak of Islamic
Fundamentalists, but the customary genteel distinction between fundamentalist
and moderate Islam has been convincingly demolished by Ibn Warraq in his
well-informed book, Why I Am Not a Muslim.

The human psyche has two great sicknesses: the urge to carry vendetta across
generations, and the tendency to fasten group labels on people rather than see
them as individuals. Abrahamic religion gives strong sanction to both--and mixes
explosively with both. Only the wilfully blind could fail to implicate the
divisive force of religion in most, if not all, of the violent enmities in the
world today. Without a doubt it is the prime aggravator of the Middle East.
Those of us who have for years politely concealed our contempt for the dangerous
collective delusion of religion need to stand up and speak out. Things are
different now. "All is changed, changed utterly."

Richard Dawkins is professor of the Public Understanding of Science,
University of Oxford, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and
Unweaving the Rainbow.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those
of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free
Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by
copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.